Just thought I'd open a thread on first impressions and comments regarding Northern Strike...

In no particular order, here's some comments after playing each maps through on both sides...

- Goliaths are certainly an interesting new element. The interesting question will be come is if they disrupt balance and/or are annoying or too powerful. What's really interesting is that b/c they move so slow, an entire squad in one effectively takes the squad out of the game for a non-trivial period of time on big maps.

- "Liberation of Leipzig" (the blue/night map) seems to have a lot of potential, but the number of hiding spots for snipers sure seems daunting. The ambient color scheme (dark blue) of this maps offers a fresh, fun new kind of visibility impediment.

- The number of walkers on these maps seems pretty intense. When there's three walkers hanging out together, it's an ugly situation...

- "Bridge at Remagen" is just plain huge. So huge that unless it full with 48 vs 48 (or more), it doesn't seem like it'll be very fun. Combine its size with the fact that it's a walker fest...

- I like NS, but my primary concern is that these mega-maps wont be as fun to play unless the teams are also large (at least 48 vs 48). The second these maps empty out, they'll *really* empty out, so they'll be deadlocked to be empty. Thoughts?

- "Port Bavaria" is certainly cute with the whole APC/pod thing. The huge wide open spaces to get from one dock to another usually end up in death, so it's becomes really tough to move a squad around swiftly when there's enemies camped out.

- The whole lock/unlock UBC thing on "Liberation of Leipzig" and "Port Bavaria" seems freshly original but they may prove to be a bit dicy to deal with. I gotta believe that it'll be pretty tough for a team to get all the other flags (for a sustained period of time) to get the final flag (assuming the server is sufficiently populated and decently balanced). Also, even if one team does get all the flags to unlock the last one, the game is presumably already in a blowout state anyway (and the teams need balancing). The other comment I have is that present TG ROE currently prohibits UBC camping and vehicle theft, so this whole lock/unlock UBC thing makes things much more grey (especially since they're located very close to the other capturable flags). Personally, it seems to be a lose/lose situation: if you're trying to cap the BC and it just got locked and you happen to be standing next to a walker, it's not that unreasonable that you have the right to jump in. Also, no matter what our ROE says, there'll be a lot more "honest" violators (ie, players that violate the ROE without realizing it, such as in the situation above). It's seems like it'll be a tricky issue...

- Clearly, $10 is basically not much to pay for some fun new maps and vehicles. Let's face it, two combo meals at McDonalds cost more than this, so hopefully most TGs will spring for NS without much thought or complaint.


Andy